Meta

Archive for September, 2010

The Minuteman III ICBM launch set for Wednesday, September 15, has been canceled as of 1:15 pm Tuesday afternoon. The base is preparing a press release to explain why. The launch has been rescheduled for Friday, September 17th at 3 am. Check MacGregor Eddy’s Blog for further info. or call 831-206-5043

Jorge Manly-Gil’s trial that was scheduled for Thursday, September 16 at 1:30 PM was dismissed today, Tuesday, in a pre-trial conference call. Good news for Jorge. Complicated for the long run: Jorge’s ban and barment was based on his failure to show ID – a charge which was previously dropped. This was a case where the base commander orders the arrest of people violating ban and bars that are based on dropped charges. In this situation nothing was resolved. There are several others are in similar positions as Jorge. This probably means more arrests to follow. Hopefully a resolution can be reached in the near future.

A federal grand jury, on September 3, 2010, handed down a litany of indictments against five nuclear resisters who entered Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, the U.S. Navy’s West Coast nuclear weapons storage depot, in a “plowshares” action in the early morning hours of November 2, 2009, All Souls Day, with the intention of calling attention to the illegality and immorality of the existence of the Trident weapons system.

During the action they held a banner saying…“Disarm Now! Plowshares : Trident: Illegal + Immoral”, left a trail of blood, hammered on the roadway and fences around Strategic Weapons Facility – Pacific (SWFPAC) and scattered sunflower seeds throughout the base. They gained entry to the secure nuclear weapons storage facility where they were detained, and after extensive questioning by base security, FBI and Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), cited for trespass and destruction of government property, given ban and bar letters and released.

Sr. Anne Montgomery, 83, of Redwood City, California, Fr. Bill “Bix” Bichsel, S.J., 82, of Tacoma, Washington, Susan Crane, 65, of Baltimore, Maryland, Lynne M. Greenwald, 61, of Bremerton, Washington, and Fr. Steve Kelly, S.J., 61, of Oakland, California, each face up to ten years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted on the government’s charges of “conspiracy, trespass, destruction of property on a naval installation, and depredation of government property. The Disarm Now! Plowshares defendants will appear in U.S. District Court in Tacoma for arraignment on September 24, 2010, at 1:30 p.m.

There have been more than 100 “Plowshares” Nuclear Resistance Actions worldwide since 1980. “Plowshares” actions are taken from Isaiah 2:4 in the Hebrew scriptures of the Christian Bible: “God will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; One nation shall not take up the sword against another nation, nor will they train for war again.”

The Trident submarine base at Bangor, just 20 miles west of Seattle, is home to the largest single stockpile of nuclear warheads in the U.S. arsenal, housing more than 2000 nuclear warheads. In November 2006, the Natural Resources Defense Council declared that the 2,364 nuclear warheads at Bangor are approximately 24 percent of the entire U.S. arsenal. The Bangor base houses more nuclear warheads than China, France, Israel, India, North Korea and Pakistan combined.

The base has been rebuilt for the deployment of the larger and more accurate Trident D-5 missile system. Each of the 24 D-5 missiles on a Trident submarine is capable of carrying eight of the larger 455 kiloton W-88 warheads (each warhead is about 30 times the explosive force as the Hiroshima bomb) and costs approximately $60 million. The D-5 missile can also be armed with the 100 kiloton W-76 warhead. The Trident fleet at Bangor deploys both the 455 kiloton W-88 warhead and the 100 kiloton W-76 warhead.

Visit Disarm Now! Web site for complete information, including biographical statements and links to the work of the Disarm Now! Plowshares members.